THE MILITARY SYSTEM OF BENIN KINGDOM, c.1440 - 1897

the area in which they were built.” 113 His argument is that the oral data are linked to fairlystable settlement continuity over the centuries. 114 The excavations and researches in andaround Benin City by Graham Connah were also examined in the light of oral references andagainst the objective dating from archaeology. This demonstrates the extent to which oraltradition can be relied upon.While there are minority traditions of the underprivileged or of the marginalisedpeople, most of the Benin traditions closely concern specific events connected either inrelationship between the Oba and his chiefs or allegiances to the monarchy. For all hereditarychieftaincy title holders, oral traditions are transmitted from father to son in the line of directdescent or from father to children as the case may be. An example is Chief Ogiamien ofBenin, who till this day, maintains a family court history, in order to keep their own historicalrecords vis-à-vis the royal palace history. For the non-hereditary chiefs, some traditions aretransmitted within the order of chiefs - Town and Palace Chiefs - but there still remains abasic problem of the contents and intentions. For the period c.1440 to 1897, evidence fromsome traditions matched information acquired through early European documentation. Forexample, two independent sources, the description of West Africa by Duarte Pacheco Pereirapublished in about 1507, and the account of Portuguese expansion written by the chroniclerJoao de Barros in 1552 are the early and most important text material used by scholarsworking on Benin. Pacheco Pereira maintained that he had visited Benin four times at the endof the fifteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth, and based his information,presumably, on local informants. 115 The present day evidence in Benin traditions concerningthe warrior kings were also recorded independently by Olfert Dapper in his book firstpublished 1668 in Amsterdam. Some information provided by Dapper on Benin wars and theorganisation of the Benin army of the period, have been corroborated by some Benin elderswho have had no access to the original European texts. During the field work for thisresearch, my informants gave evidence of the use of Portuguese visitors by Oba Esigie in hiswars. The evidence of Duarte Pires in his report published in 1516, 116 and AlessandroZorzi, 117 confirm Portuguese military assistance to Oba Esigie in his wars against Idah and113 Patrick J. Darling, 1984, The Ancient Linear Earthworks of Benin and Ishan Parts 1 and 2. CambridgeMonographs in Archaeology II, BAR International Series, p. 34.114 ibid.115 Duarte Pacheco Pereira, Emeraldo de situ Orbis, Book 2. Cited in John K. Thornton, 1988, “Traditions,” p.352.116 Duarte Pires to King of Portugal, 20 October 1516, Brasio, Monumenta, I, p.370. Cited in Thornton, 1988,“Traditions,” p.358.117 Alessandro Zorzi, “Informatio hauuto io da portogalesi .1517. I Venecia,” fol. 140v., published with notes inF. Leite da Faria and Avelino Teixeira da Mota, Novidades Nauicas e Ultramainas (Lisbon, 1977), a separata36